LISTEN: Mike Gordon – “Yarmouth Road”

One of my favorite “new” tracks that Phish was playing with recently is the Mike Gordon penned “Yarmouth Road”, a track with a reggae groove and a great refrain that I always left a show singing with without really knowing the words. Today the track was premiered over at Rolling Stone and they got some exclusives on how the track came together:

“Yarmouth Road” was completed in South Boston, inspired by a walk through a building owned by Gordon’s uncle – an old oil distillery-turned-artists’ building featuring honeycomb-shaped ceiling sculptures. The final piece of the song was incorporating the “Banshee” pedal, a modern version of the talk box popularized by Peter Frampton. “It just pushed it over the edge,” says Gordon.

On February 25, 2014, Megaplum/ATO Records will release Mike Gordon’s new studio solo album, Overstep. It is available for pre-order now at Mike’s Store and Phish Dry Goods on both CD and a 2-LP blue vinyl set (http://drygoods.phish.com/Dept.aspx?cp=773_64603). Overstep is Mike’s fourth solo studio album, following Moss, The Green Sparrow, and Inside In.

Beginning today, fans can listen to “Yarmouth Road”, the first single from the album, exclusively at Rollingstone.com. The infectious, reggae-inspired number is already familiar to Phish fans after its debut (along with “Say Something”) on the band’s Summer 2013 tour. In addition, anyone who pre-orders the album at iTunes will receive an automatic download of ‘Yarmouth Road’.

Gordon and Scott Murawski penned the songs for Overstep during a series of writing retreats in New England. He turned over the producing reins to Paul Q. Kolderie (Radiohead, Uncle Tupelo, Pixies) and invited a few new players into the studio, including legendary drummer Matt Chamberlain (Jon Brion, Fiona Apple). Distant industrial noise gradually gives way to lush guitars and welcoming vocal harmonies in “Ether,” the album opener (listen to the track here), while “Jumping” is a rhythmic puzzle box, detailing a series of thoughts that take place in a fleeting 1.5 seconds.

Many of these songs promise huge payoffs in a live environment, most notably two plunging grooves that seem capable of bringing a house down. “Tiny Little World” opens with a polite reverie about a fetching woman in a coffee shop, but morphs quickly into pulsing boogie as the narrator is carried away by desire and bravado. Debauched exhortations to dance surface again in “Face,” which chugs along atop Chamberlain’s simple but undeniable pocket.

The songs on Overstep also speak to Gordon’s evolving ability to develop three- dimensional characters, and to speak more directly to the truth of their condition. He hasn’t lost his appetite for metaphor, and he still leaves plenty of room for interpretation, but listeners may find themselves recognizing the human portraits in songs like “Say Something” and “Paint” in a way they haven’t in Gordon’s previous albums. Still, happily, Gordon embraces absurdity as he always has – conceptually, lyrically, and musically.

Bundles with t-shirts, record player slipmats, and more are also available. Everyone who orders from Phish Dry Goods or Mike’s online store will receive an autographed copy of the album, and be automatically entered to win a set of the original vinyl test pressings and tickets to a show on his Spring Tour. Pre-order Overstep today.